Yugioh! The Darkest Night
by Megami Ryuuzaki
Summary: When monster summoners begin attacking people randomly, Yuugi ends up involved, but can he defeat these evil summoners? The Millennium Puzzle is back? Yuugi and his friends meet someone they never thought they would see again. Title subject to change.
1. Chapter 1

Hey, welcome to my first official Yu-gi-oh fanfic. My first was a random drabble so I guess that doesn't really count eh? This fanfic won't be too long I hope. Whenever I start some sort of epic fanfic, it turns out to be way longer than I originally wanted and I start not knowing how to continue it. See my Hellsing fic Oblivion as an example. So, let's hope that doesn't happen here. I should be doing writing homework instead of this, but meh, there was a mix up in my course CD so I can't do the assignment I need and blah blah. You probably don't really care about my personal problems, heh. I'll be using the Japanese names of the characters since they're better so if you're not familiar, Anzu Tea, Jounouchi Joey, Honda Trysten.

This fic will be AU in the fact that card games are not the way characters duel. They use actual magic, which is way cooler in my opinion. So, everything that happened in the manga, did happen but with magic, not virtual game cards. So, everyone is an actual monster summoner. Make sense? I hope so. Need an in depth explanation of how exactly that's going to work? See the author note at the end of this chapter. That's really the only difference, but it still makes it AU. Also, sorry for any mistakes details wise like "how many years Yami was with Yuugi" for example. I've actually never read any of Duelist, I've only seen like half the anime version of that, but I have watched and read all of Shadow Games and Millennium World, which are the best parts anyway, ne? Lol. Yeah, ok, anyway, now on to the fic. Enjoy and don't forget to review with your opinions. ( I promise my author notes will not be this long from now on.)

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Lightning streaked across the night sky and thunder shook the game shop where a boy with crazy looking hair sat at a desk. Nineteen year old Yuugi Mutou was studying for his university entrance exams in his room on the top floor of the shop. He looked out the window at the sky as rain began to fall and rested his head on his hand, his elbow on the desk. Sighing, he tapped his pencil on the desk. Studying for his entrance exams was important he knew, but he couldn't help being distracted. Today just happened to be the day Atem had left one year ago. A lot had happened since then. Anzu, Jounouchi, Honda, and Yuugi had all graduated high school. Anzu would be leaving in a few days to go to New York to fulfill her dream of becoming a dancer. Yuugi was going to really miss her, but he knew it was what she wanted more than anything, so he was resolved to see her off with a smile. Jounouchi was trying to get into the same school as Yuugi, the new prestigious summoners school, Kaiba Academy, owned by none other than Seto Kaiba. Honda, who lacked the ability to be a summoner, was trying to get into Domino University. In a week it would just be Jounouchi and Yuugi left from the group of friends. Though Honda and Anzu said they would keep in touch, Yuugi knew that would be tough. Both were getting into something that was a full-time effort.

Yuugi leaned back in his chair. Things had been tough for him since Atem left. It was like a part of him was gone and it left him hollow inside. He was lonely to put it simply. Jounouchi and the others had seemed to go on a couple months later, but Yuugi still hadn't gotten over the fact that his other self was no longer there. He rubbed his eyes and checked his clock. It was almost one in the morning. No wonder he was tired, but sleep eluded him most nights anyway. He hoped tonight would be different. He stood from his chair and shut off his desk lamp. Changing into his pajamas, he climbed into bed and fell into a fitful sleep full of dreams of the past.

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"Yuugi! Yuugi!"

Yuugi awoke to sound of his grandfather shouting up to him. He grumbled and yawned as he sat up.

"Yuugi! Jounouchi is here!"

Jounouchi? What was he doing here? Yuugi looked at his clock.

"Twelve Thirty?" Yuugi mumbled. "Oh no! I'm late for our study group!" he cried jumping out of bed and hurrying to get dressed in his usual attire. Grabbing his backpack he raced out of his room and down the stairs to greet Jounouchi who stood out front of the shop with his arms crossed.

"Sorry I'm late Jounouchi!"

Jounouchi looked up at his friend. "What happened. You sleep in?" Jounouchi asked, obviously a little annoyed. "We're already half an hour late. I don't want to spend all day studying."

"I know, I know." Yuugi replied. "Sorry. Let's hurry to the library."

The two friends fought through the crowds of people on the busy streets of Domino City. As much of a rush as they were in, it didn't stop Yuugi from noticing the news on a television in one of the shops they passed. He stopped to watch as Jounouchi kept going, oblivious to the fact that his friend had been captivated by the news. Yuugi walked up close to the shop so he could hear the reporter over the sound of the people on the streets. From what he could hear, and what he derived from the images being shown, there had been some attacks recently on random people by an unknown group. They were summoners it was believed and they used their abilities to attack innocent people. The reason behind the attacks was still inconclusive. Over six people were in the hospital already, two in critical condition. A reward was being offered to whoever found the people responsible. The channel switched to a commercial and Yuugi looked away from the screen. Summoners using their abilities to hurt people in Domino? It was pretty scary. Suddenly someone placed a hand on Yuugi's shoulder and he jumped.

"Woah, Yuugi, what's wrong?" Yuugi sighed. It was just Jounouchi. He had been thinking about the news broadcast so intently that he hadn't even noticed his friend come back to find him. "Why did you stop? I was walking and talking to myself and people were looking at me like I was nuts."

"Sorry Jounouchi. I was distracted by the news." Yuugi explained, "Apparently there have been some recent attacks on people by summoners. There's a reward for whoever finds the people responsible."

"Attacks huh? Yeah, I think I heard about that. Didn't know there was a reward. I wonder what it is."

Yuugi shrugged. "I don't know, but let's get to the library."

Jounouchi nodded. "Yeah."

They finally reached the library and sat at a table near the back. They opened their bags and began pulling out books, reading over things that looked like they'd be on the written test. That was going to be the hard part Yuugi imagined since summoning had become easier for him since his other self arrived. He quickly concentrated more on the books in front of him though, before he started thinking about the pharaoh too much. Jounouchi looked up at Yuugi and noticed a strange expression on his friend's face. The boy looked like he was trying to concentrate on the book too hard and his face was contorted into an expression that made Jounouchi laugh loudly. The librarian promptly looked up and glared. Jounouchi saw her and gulped, and immediately looked back to his books.

"What was so funny Jounouchi?" Yuugi asked.

"You had the weirdest look on your face." Jounouchi snickered. "What were you thinking about?"

"Ah..." Yuugi was taken aback. He hadn't realized his inward struggle to concentrate on his studies and not the past had been apparent on his face. "I uh, just didn't understand this one part in this book." he said, putting his hand behind his head and laughing nervously. Jounouchi raised an eyebrow at his friend.

"You're so weird." Jounouchi shook his head. Yuugi changed the subject by telling Jounouchi to quiz him. The two took turns asking each other questions until they were interrupted by a girl running into the library and yelling loudly about her friend being attacked by a summoner. Yuugi and Jounouchi looked at each other and, leaving their books, ran to the girl who had fallen on the ground sobbing and was now surrounded by the people that had been in the library. People began asking the girl questions and once Yuugi heard where her friend was, he and Jounouchi looked at each other, nodded, and ran off to find the other girl.

"She should be just around the alley over here!" Yuugi said to Jounouchi as they ran. Sure enough, they found a young girl laying against a wall unconscious. No one else was in sight. Yuugi ran to the girl while Jounouchi kept looking around for signs of who had done this.

"Hey!" Yuugi tried to wake the girl, "Hey, wake up!"

Jounouchi picked the girl up. "Yuugi, let's get her to the hospital."

"R...right." Yuugi replied and the two hurried to get the girl to a doctor.

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Author Note: First off, no the girl is not going to be a main character OC. She's just some random person that's going to help move the story along. The only OC's in this fic will be the villains (so far. Still not sure about that). Second, if you're reading this, you wanted to know how exactly magic is replacing the card games. It's pretty simple. Instead of Duel Disks, the characters summon monsters much like they did in the Pharaoh's Memory arc (manga version) minus the stone slabs. They use incantations to summon a monster to fight. The spells are written on tarot cards so those that are in training can use them if they forget the spells. Higher ranking summoners don't need the cards and can summon monsters from memory. The highest level summoners can summon monsters by reciting the spells in their heads which is a lot faster than reading the cards or saying spells out loud and summons a monster almost instantly. All summoners must say the monster's name out loud before it can be summoned. The monsters that are summoned are controlled by the person's will and soul. A person with a weaker will and/or soul can only summon low ranking monsters by reading the cards. If they try to summon a higher ranking monster there is more of a chance they could lose control of it and the monster would then run rampant attacking anyone in the area. The summoner could also pass out or even die. As for the trap cards, those are also spells, so technically the characters would be more than summoners, but for the sake of simplicity, I'm only going to just refer to them as summoners. I think that's about it. I hope this isn't too confusing, and if it is, I hope to clear that up as the fic progresses. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you next chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

Welcome to chapter 2. This one will be longer than the first. Chapter 1 was just to get you introduced and informed on what's going to be happening. I'll be rushing through the scenes in this chapter a bit too though so that I can get into the actual story. I debated back and forth about going into detail with Yuugi and Jounouchi's Kaiba Academy entrance exams. I finally decided to leave it out since I suck at battle scenes. I hope you like this chapter. Don't forget to let me know how you like it. It really helps motivate me to write more. If you'd like to actually read what happened during the battle exams, let me know. I might end up making a side chapter if enough people wanted to read it.

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"How is she?"

"She'll be fine. She's in better condition than the others."

Yuugi, Jounouchi, and the doctor that looked over the girl that was attacked were talking in the hall outside the girl's room.

"Can we talk to her?" Jounouchi asked. The doctor nodded and Yuugi and Jounouchi entered the room and stood next to the girl's bedside. She looked like death, her skin was unnaturally pale, there were bags under her eyes, her short red hair was tousled, and she looked very tired. Her appearance was probably due to fear and shock and it made Yuugi wonder just what happened to her. The girl slowly opened her gray eyes, and focused on Yuugi and Jounouchi.

"Who are you?" she asked in a voice so quiet and squeaky that Yuugi and Jounouchi almost couldn't hear her.

"Your friend came running into the library saying there was trouble and we found you and brought you to the hospital." Jounouchi explained. "Do you mind if we ask what happened to you?"

The girl shook her head. "No, that's fine." she replied, her voice becoming a bit clearer than before, "Risa, that's my friend, and I were just walking home, minding our own business, when two men walked up to us. They scared us so we ran and they followed and cornered us in an alley. Next thing we knew one of them had summoned a monster that attacked us... It all happened so fast I don't remember how it hit me or even what it looked like... Then everything went dark." The girl's eyes suddenly went wide. "Where's Risa?!"

"She's ok." Yuugi said, "One of the nurses went to the library to find her."

"Thank goodness." the girl breathed.

"Can you remember what the men that attacked you looked like?" Yuugi questioned.

The girl shook her head. "No, they were wearing white cloaks. All I remember is one of their voices was deep and gruff and the other sounded like he was much younger, more like my age."

Before Yuugi or Jounouchi could continue to interrogate her, the door to the room burst open and Risa ran in crying. "Oh Yui! You're okay!" she cried, running to her injured friend. "I'm so glad you're okay!" Yui just smiled.

"Yep, thanks to these two."

Risa stopped the hysterics for a moment and turned to Yuugi and Jounouchi, bowing. "Thank you so much!"

Yuugi and Jounouchi just smiled awkwardly. Suddenly, Yuugi remembered their books were back at the library. He nudged Jounouchi, who seemed to realize the same thing.

"It's no problem." Jounouchi said as he and Yuugi headed for the door. "We need to go now though."

"Get better soon Yui." Yuugi said to the girl before he and Jounouchi hurried out of the room and down the hall.

"Monster summoners attacking those girls?" Jounouchi wondered out loud in the elevator heading to the main floor of the hospital. "Why would they possibly attack them? I don't see any obvious reason for it."

Yuugi just shook his head. "I don't know..." He didn't see any reason for it either. The only thought that came to mind was terrorism. It wasn't uncommon for people to bully those weaker than them, Yuugi knew that from experience, but using summoned monsters? That was going a bit far.

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The day Anzu was leaving was fast approaching. It would be the day after Yuugi and Jounouchi took their Kaiba Academy entrance exams. Like the attacks weren't enough of a distraction for them, even though they seemed to have stopped for the time being. Despite their curiosity towards the monster summoner attacks, the two friends studied their hardest in the last few days before the exams. They had been preparing since they graduated high school and a couple of summoner terrorists weren't going to screw this up for them.

"This is it Yuugi." Jounouchi said as he and Yuugi stood at the foot of the steps that led up to Kaiba Academy. Anzu and Honda were already inside in the stands waiting to cheer them on.

"Yeah." Yuugi nodded. Once they walked up those steps and entered through the huge wooden double doors, there was no turning back. The day they had been preparing for for almost a year had finally arrived.

Once inside Kaiba Academy everyone was told the rules. They would have to go through a set of three battles, if they won at least two of the three battles, they could go on to take the written portion of the exam. If they lost more than one, they would be dismissed and have to try to get into the academy the next year. Obviously, it was an all day affair and in the end, Yuugi, Jounouchi, and thirteen others were all that remained of the fifty five competitors. Jounouchi gave Yuugi a high five and they followed the others into the written exam testing room.

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"You two were great yesterday." Anzu said to Jounouchi and Yuugi as they walked through the airport. Yuugi, Honda, and Jounouchi had come to see Anzu off. Her plane for New York would be boarding in a few minutes and the friends wanted to be with her as long as they could.

"Thanks!" Jounouchi said, smiling widely. "I sure showed Kaiba. He was definitely shocked that I got in."

"So was I." Honda whispered to Yuugi and Anzu who both laughed.

"What was that, Honda?" Jounouchi growled. That just made them laugh harder. All too soon woman's voice came onto the loudspeakers announcing that Anzu's flight was now boarding. The friends got quiet and Anzu sighed.

"Well, this is it. Thanks for coming to see me off guys." Anzu said smiling. "I'm going to miss you three."

'Not as much as I'm going to miss you.' Yuugi thought, but he kept a big smile on his face. "We'll miss you too Anzu. Good luck." They all hugged for the last time, not knowing when the next chance would be. Anzu grabbed her bags and Yuugi, Honda, and Jounouchi watched her until she walked through the door to the plane and out of sight. The three friends silently stood at the windows and watched Anzu's plane take off and disappear into the darkening sky.

A few days later Honda informed Jounouchi and Yuugi that he had been accepted to Domino University. It was only a couple hours away and Honda assured them he'd come visit, but they all knew that would be difficult. The work load at the university was so much that it was a wonder any of the students had time to sleep. Like with Anzu, Jounouchi and Yuugi saw Honda off and watched his bus until it was out of sight. Though it wasn't near as painful, with two of his friends gone Yuugi once again felt the emptiness grip his heart like watching Atem leave all over again.

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Yuugi and Jounouchi walked home from their first day of classes pretty exhausted. As expected, Kaiba seemed to be giving them a harder time than the others.

"That bastard Kaiba. Who does he think he is anyway?" Jounouchi complained.

"I'm sure he was just trying to help us become better duelists, in his own way." Yuugi replied, always the optimist.

Jounouchi grumbled. "I'm not so sure about that." he muttered. Yuugi laughed, but stopped when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned quickly, but saw nothing.

"What's wrong?" Jounouchi asked, concern in his voice. Yuugi shook his head.

"I just thought I saw something..." he replied. "It's nothing."

Jounouchi shrugged and they continued walking. "What do you think happened to those monster summoners?" Jounouchi asked suddenly. Yuugi knew who he meant and shook his head.

"I don't know. Maybe they got bored of attacking people? Or hopefully they just realized it was wrong and decided to stop."

"That's kind of a long shot , Yuugi." Jounouchi replied. Yuugi didn't get a chance to answer though. The two friends heard footsteps behind them. Whoever it was was in a group and they were pretty close behind. Too close. Yuugi and Jounouchi glanced back and saw two white cloaked figures. They both gulped and began running down the street toward the park. It was late in the day and there weren't many people out, so no one was around to help them.

"What are we gonna do?" Jounouchi yelped as they ran.

"Just keep running." Yuugi replied, pointing ahead of him at a large area where cranes, tractors and other various construction equipment sat, "Let's head for that area where they're doing construction on those buildings. We might be able to lose them there." Jounouchi didn't reply and followed Yuugi's lead.


End file.
